Inside a Dutchess County Home Where Midcentury Modernism Meets Japanese-Inspired Architecture

At the starting of 2020, inside designer Brygida Michon and her partner, Neil Rajpal, had just moved again from Paris to New York, and had been looking for a tranquil residence absent from house outdoors of the city. Due to the fact they were usually heading up to the Beacon region to rent a cabin for the weekend, they made the decision to lookup there. When they laid eyes on The Falls, a 1960s midcentury modern-day household with Japanese architectural influences, they immediately fell in love.

“As shortly as we walked into the household, the gentle was incredible,” Brygida recalls. “The dwelling has comprehensive floor-to-ceiling home windows all around, and there are quite a few skylights. We initially saw it on a late September afternoon, and the mild was just so amazing. It almost felt like it was portion of the structure of the home.”

The household blends many textures, which includes stone floors, cedarwood walls, and curved picket beams. Brygida and Neil had been dedicated to preserving the exceptional character of the home, specially its harmonious link to character. “We did not want to get away from the architectural intention of the house,” Brygida claims. “We tried using to retain renovations to a minimum and concentration on furniture, generating absolutely sure to regard what was previously there, while including to it in a way that we considered would complement the existing style of the home.”

As an interior designer for over a ten years, Brygida has largely worked in luxury retail spaces, doing work with customers which includes Chanel, Kith, MAC Cosmetics, and Dior. But she’s often been drawn to residential interiors, much too. “I grew up in Europe, and was surrounded by French modernism,” she claims of her design and style influences. “The get the job done of people today like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe was a [touchstone] in the course of my scientific tests and my profession.” She also picked up inspiration from her time performing with Editions de Parfums by Frederic Malle. “A whole lot of my recent structure aesthetic and inspiration arrived from performing with Frederic,” she states.

Brygida enjoys mixing design features, and contrasting parts from unique time periods. She relied intensely on vintage, leaning into exceptional finds from shops through upstate New York. “It can be overwhelming to dive into classic. And mainly because I was undertaking this for the duration of [height of] the pandemic, solutions ended up also minimal in phrases of browsing bodily locations.” 1stDibs was a single on the web resource that Brygida leveraged in the design process, whilst community vintage outlets turned her go-tos. “I expended hours and several hours at Newburgh Classic Emporium [in the Hudson Valley], and close friends would occur stop by and assistance me search!”

Currently, the property is also whole of first Man Ray artwork, which possesses an attention-grabbing backstory: The preceding owner’s relatives owned an artwork gallery in Brussels, and Gentleman Ray was one particular of the very first artists they signed. Brygida and Neil were being capable to acquire a lot of the artwork, and the proprietor even gifted them a special piece. “In addition to the artwork that we purchased, she gifted us with a bronze template that was applied to create a pair of Person Ray’s lithographs. She mounted it on the slate backing, and it’s now hanging near the kitchen area,” Brygida points out. “I nevertheless preserve in touch with her to this day.”

Due to the fact of the couple’s focus on doing small renovations, Brygida refused to renovate the loos. “I really feel like everyone’s first intuition is generally, ‘These bogs are 50 a long time aged, you have to renovate them.’ And, I claimed, ‘Absolutely not. They are remarkable,’” she suggests. “They really feel so aged Hollywood…you have the sort of Hollywood lighting above the mirrors, and there’s a substantial pink bathtub in 1. I’m not receiving rid of it as extended as it will work!”